This country's industry of transporting pressurized fluids, such as hydrocarbons and steam, has created a very large piping network that utilizes a host of valve configurations, including pressure relief valves, shutdown valves, blow-down valves, flapper valves, ball valves and pressure control valves.
It is often necessary to route the pressurized fluids to an alternative routing path, such as when fluids are blown down to the surrounding atmosphere to prevent hazardous over-pressurization. Vent conduits that are provided for such events usually extend into the atmosphere and are subjected to the ambient year round weather cycle. It is known to provide removable protective weather covers on vertical vent conduits to prevent the inclusions of foreign matter such as frozen precipitation, dirt and animal nesting materials. It is also known to tether protective weather covers to the vent conduit so that a vent discharge event will not blow away the covers, the blown off cover serving to visually indicate vent discharge event.
While previously known weather protective covers are generally operable, such covers often require physical manipulation of the cover once the cover has been removed by the discharged fluid. Return to service of a blown off cover is often a difficult task, as access to the vent discharge location can require operating personnel to negotiate height and possibly other barriers to replace and/or reinstall the cover.
Thus, there is a continued need for improvements in weather protective covers that do not require replacement following vent discharge incidents and that do not substantively restrict the venting of fluid during a discharging event.